Find Your Way to Stillness

Recently a friend came to visit and asked, “Given that meditating is such a big part of your life, why didn’t you include it in your THRIVE list of Top 10 Actions?” I sat a minute and realized, “I guess I just took it for granted!” Finding a way to be still inside, to quiet my mind and listen from my heart, is so basic to my life that I simply overlooked mentioning it!

For me, finding stillness is the most fundamental step for any kind of world changing, or self-changing, endeavor. Without it, there’s no landing place for what I think of as trans-rational guidance, and no wellspring of clarity from which to act. For me, trans-rational is not irrational — it simply goes beyond my rational mind.

When I find stillness, and engage from a place beyond my rational mind, I invite the Universe to show up as the partner it’s designed to be. Intuition, creativity, clarity, and courage…they all come from this quiet place. Not quiet as in not talking, but deeply quiet, where the rational mind is disengaged while I am still alert and fully present.

I don’t think it matters how you get to this place, as long as it does not depend on being substance-induced, and it becomes a regular practice. I imagine there are as many ways to find stillness as there are people seeking it. Sitting, praying, drumming, dancing, walking…Whatever brings you to your gratitude.

Artist unknown

When I started meditating, it initially took awhile for me to still my busy mind. I got a tape from The Monroe Institute with a binaural sound beat that helped me establish a frame of reference that I then learned how to get to on my own. The idea is that the slightly different beat in each ear (binaural) inclines the hemispheres of the brain to get in synch, and from there a relaxed portal is opened from which to access other dimensions, and an alert state of stillness. It is the same technique used in shamanic rituals, where a slightly different frequency is played on either side of someone’s head as they go into trance.

Researchers say it generally takes about 20 minutes for a different state of stillness to kick in. I think when you intentionally set aside the time for this, the Universe helps reveal the process that’s best for you. I believe this is because there is an infinite field of wisdom, grace and telepathy that needs you — needs each of us — in order to fulfill its purpose, as we need it to fulfill our own.

In meditation, our brainwaves tend to slow down to the “alpha-theta bridge”. It’s about 7.8 cycles per second, which is in harmony with the Earth’s pulse, what’s called the Schumann’s Resonance. When we get ourselves to this place and stay alert instead of drifting into sleep, we create an opening — a bridge between receiving and intending, between intuition and intellect. It is this opening that allows guidance to come through. By reducing the noise we can better hear the signal.

Once you experience it, there’s no mistaking the peace. Deep stillness is like a cosmic orgasm, connecting us to all realms of life, hovering, shimmering and blissful. And like any orgasm, once it happens, you don’t have to wonder whether or not you’ve experienced it!

Finding inner stillness doesn’t just make us healthier, less stressed, happier and more resilient. It enables us to know our true selves, outside of our beliefs and feelings, outside of our own and others’ projections. It frees us to be who we are meant to be, and to know who that is (as well as who it isn’t).

Personal clarity, a sense of purpose and a feeling of deep connection are the foundations for effective action. Being still provides access to a boundlessly compassionate and creative source, and allows us to access solutions that we can then use our intellects and personal capacities to make manifest. It’s a co-creative adventure.

Composite Image by Teresa Collins

Teresa Collins

When Foster and I came up with the Top Ten Actions for THRIVE, we were looking to help people have a succinct list of meaningful ways to engage in solving critical problems. We saw so many well-intentioned people pouring themselves into efforts that were intrinsically insufficient or off-target.

We focused our list a lot on economic actions — divesting from banks who are underwriting the corporate destruction, paying attention to what your investments are funding, exposing and getting rid of the Federal Reserve, etc.

Those are leveraged actions. We get a lot of bang for our buck with actions like that, because they address the root of the problem, which is an intrinsically-corrupt, coercively imposed economic and authoritarian control system. But to get to the heart of the problem, we have to open our own hearts and learn to hold the outrage and angst of the agony all around us, and the turmoil within us, with the true inner knowing that we are not alone. We have remarkable spiritual allies who are counting on us to wake up and engage them along with our brilliant selves on behalf of the healing.

Not only does finding this inner quiet help us to be personally more present and capable, it amplifies among those who engage from this place. Like guitars being tuned in a room together, each finds the other to tune to, in resonance. It’s the same with people. Some researchers have proposed that a meditating group is able to increase coherence and decrease stress in the collective consciousness of a community by permeating the atmosphere and synchronizing their alpha and theta brain waves. In a review of various research conducted on city, state, national, and international levels, fifteen published studies showed strong evidence that group meditation was able to reduce crime rates.

I invite you to find a quiet place from which to access the bounty of inner peace, insight and effective action from which to engage the huge and ongoing challenge of creating a world where everyone truly has a chance to thrive.

And let us know how it’s going!

Resources

Deepak Chopra and some others have organized a synchronized Global Meditation for Peace this coming August 8, 2014 starting at 12 PM EST.

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